Nob Hill shop offers job skills to women with harrowing backgrounds

By Adam Fox

Lawyer Lisa Simpson is used to seeing the same women work their way through the criminal justice system. “They'd get released, and a month later they'd be back in the jail.” She saw a need—especially in Albuquerque, where programs for women are rare—to provide a way to help women get their lives back on track.

Extra! Extra! Lies!

On Wednesday, Nov. 12, pranksters handed out thousands of fake copies of the New York Times with the front-page headline "Iraq War Ends" to commuters at several busy New York subway stations.

The paper, which is dated July 4, 2009, also includes stories with headers like "Maximum Wage Law Succeeds," "Nation Sets Its Sights on Building Sane Economy" and "Ex-Secretary Apologizes for W.M.D. Scare."

The elaborate ruse was carried out by three unnamed Times employees, a film promoter and an art professor. Notorious left-wing hoax squad The Yes Men also provided software and Internet support for the paper's accompanying spoof web page, which looks like the Times' site. The paper was meant to encourage politicians nationwide to push for a more liberal agenda.

Social worker builds a dating website for the mentally ill

By Marisa Demarco

Social Worker Elizabeth Barrett noticed something about her clients combatting mental illness: Those in relationships were thriving. "With people who had these social connections, signs of the illness diminished, and they were staying healthier for longer periods of time," she says.

Amid the general euphoria of Obama’s Electoral College landslide, while Democrats around the country exulted, shed tears of joy and jumped up and down in celebration, there was one curious interlude that I found very sobering: John McCain’s concession speech.

Hardheaded types like scientists and skeptical investigators are sometimes portrayed as dour debunkers devoid of magic and awe. They are seen as eggheads and naysayers who don’t believe anything wondrous that they can’t put under a microscope. Yet I passionately disagree. In 1997, I visited two of the great mystical “energy centers” of the world: the pyramids at Ghiza and the Peruvian ruins of Machu Picchu in the South American Andes. The Peruvian ruins sit atop a steep, verdant mountain, surrounded by lower hills emerging regally from cottony white clouds. The huge stone complex, which is a remnant of the Inca civilization, was rediscovered only recently (in 1911), having escaped the Spanish Conquest because of its remote location and rugged terrain.

Dateline: Turkey—The mayor of a Turkish city called Batman is suing director Christopher Nolan and the Warner Bros. movie studio for royalties from this summer’s hit film The Dark Knight. Hüseyin Kalkan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party mayor of Batman, has accused the Batman movie producers of unauthorized use of his city’s name. “There is only one Batman in the world,” Kalkan told movie trade publication Variety. “The American producers used the name of our city without informing us.” The mayor says the film’s success has had a negative psychological impact on the city’s inhabitants, blaming it for a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate. The mayor is working on gathering evidence that he claims will prove the city of Batman predates the 1939 debut of Bob Kane’s superhero in DC Comics. “We are only aware of this claim via press reports and have not seen any actual legal action,” a Warner Bros. spokesperson said in a statement.

Imagine you went to a town where everybody always wore cloth covering their ears, even in hot weather. You never saw anyone with bare ears in public. It was forbidden by law. You could get fined, thrown in jail, laughed at, cursed, beaten up and branded as a pervert if you showed your naked ears in public. Insane! Why are these people ashamed and afraid of seeing bare ears in public? Why are they so hung up about that part of the body? Why this weird taboo?